References to Black Virgins in Anamnesis

This article was contributed by Graham P. Smith and relates to the episode Anamnesis of Chris Carter's Millennium television series.

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Article Stats

Episode Profile

Episode Title:

MLM Code:

#MLM-219

Production Code:

5C19

Season:

2

Original Airdate:

1998-04-17

Episode Summary

Catherine Black is called to a Seattle area high school to help understand why a local girl is claiming to have magnificent religious visions of Mary Magdalene. When she arrives, however, she finds her cool psychological findings to be in direct conflict with those thought patterns of another investigator: Lara Means, representing the Millennium Group. The struggle for answers may bring Catherine to a deeper understanding of her husband’s work and driving essence.

Main Crew

Written by Erin Maher & Kay Reindl
Directed by John Kousakis
Edited by Chris Willingham, A.C.E.

LARA: (to Ray) Tell me about Ben Fisher.

RAY: The drama teacher? What about him?

CATHERINE: He's given her a lot of books.

RAY: In my eyes, Ben Fisher's the only one who's not out to get something from Clare. He's been good to her, gave her the lead in the school play. Told me she was great at memorizing lines.

[Catherine unfolds a piece of paper enclosed in "The Dark is Rising" – a biblical painting of a young man speaking to a woman. Lara looks over toward Clare's bedroom window. On a dresser below the window sits the Black Virgin that Clare found earlier. It's surrounded by six small candles and next to a tall, larger one. Catherine watches Lara move toward it.]

CATHERINE: (to Lara) What's that?

LARA: Well it, it's a Black Virgin. It's believed to be part of a religion that can be traced back to the first century. They're usually associated with natural phenomenon, ley-lines, places of power. Legend has it that they become very heavy if moved against their will.

[Catherine grasps the statue and attempts to lift, expecting to do so easily. She looks at Lara, who is watching intensely, with surprise. Catherine tries again with more force, but without success. Lara reaches toward the statue, placing her fingers apprehensively around it. Suddenly Clare bursts into the room.]

CLARE: Don't you dare touch her!

[Clare swiftly picks up the statue, exchanges glances with the two women, and runs out the room. Catherine and Lara stare in shock and amazement.]

[fade to black]

There are a lot of religious references within the second season episode Anamnesis, hardly surprising since the episode was inspired by the theory of the bloodline of Jesus.

The following is an extract from The Black Madonna Tradition, a fascinating article by Cassandra Eason, which may possibly have been writers Erin Maher & Kay Reindl inspiration and basis for the Black Virgin scene in Anamnesis.

The Healing Madonnas of the leys, the Black Virgin of Montserrat

Great powers of healing are associated with Black Madonna statues. One explanation is that the statues conduct the powerful earth energies associated with Ley lines along which many Madonna sites are found. Montserrat near Barcelona in Spain, like Chartres is on a Ley line. Ley lines are hypothesized as invisible psychic energy tracks beneath the earth along which people from ancient times built their temples and shrines.

Their purpose was so that they might connect with a power beyond themselves that in earlier times was associated with the power of Mother Earth. The small wooden Virgin of Montserrat called La Moreneta (the Dark Maiden) is a statue of the Virgin Mary and infant Christ that is venerated at the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery in the Montserrat mountain near Barcelona in Catalonia. The original statue is attributed to St. Luke, brought to Montserrat; it has been suggested by St. Peter in AD 50.

Centuries later, the statue was probably hidden from invaders, in nearby Santa Cova (now the Holy Grotto) and rediscovered in the late 9th century by shepherd children among rocks. They saw bright lights and heard singing coming from a cave in the mountain. Stories abound of how a Black Madonna chooses its own site and will either return there mysteriously if moved or become so heavy it is immovable Legend has it that the Benedictine monks could not move the statue from its Holy Grotto to construct their monastery, choosing to instead build close to the grotto. The Benedictines are said to be the last religious order to have knowledge of ley energies and to build their abbeys and monasteries along them. The present statue is carbon dated to the 12th century. On September 11, 1844, Pope Leo XIII declared this high profile virgin of Montserrat patroness of Catalonia.

Another Black Madonna who insisted on returning to her own site again associated with ley energies is the Black Madonna of Limoux, south of Carcassone in France, The church at Limoux is called the Notre Dame de Marceille and as with Montserrat the Madonna was found in the earth like the Montserrat Madonna.

It is told, though not accurately dated that a ploughman digging a filed on the slopes of Marcellan found his ox would not go forward whatever he tried. The ploughman started to dig and found the wooden smiling Madonna, brown and dark. He took the statue home but the next morning it had disappeared and was back in the place he found it. This happened three times and when the local monks heard they built a chapel there. Other Madonnas prove too heavy to move no matter how hard people try if they are in the right place. Our Lady of Oropa, the northern Italian region of Piemonte was brought to Italy by St. Eusebius (martyred in 371 A.D.) and placed in a cave that was a pre-Christian site sacred to Apollo and various goddesses. She had been found buried under ruins in Jerusalem. When more than a thousand years later a group of monks tried to move her to a new location, the three foot tall statue became so heavy the monks had to return her to her cave and she felt light again.

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